


The Case of the Lighthouse

by unlikely_val



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Pining, Reminiscing, also grace loves heights, he's stubborn but not stupid, melancholy synth detective nonsense, minor spoilers for the kingsport lighthouse, yeah nick knows what's going on even if he's not ready to admit it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:35:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unlikely_val/pseuds/unlikely_val
Summary: Nick couldn't be absolutely sure, but if he had to take a guess, he'd have said it was the lighthouse. The lighthouse had started it all.Nick reminisces about the Kingsport Lighthouse. He may or may not be correct in his assumptions.





	The Case of the Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't help myself. Also yes, Grace is one of those people that actively likes heights. Apologies for grammar/spelling errors, I did my best to find them all.
> 
> This does go back and forth between Nick and his memory. Hopefully that comes across in the writing but I may do some more editing to make that more clear down the road. For now I just need to get this silly idea out of my head so I can do actual work.
> 
> Edit on Jan 6 - just a bit of editing and cleaning up, no major changes. :)

Nick couldn't be absolutely sure, but if he had to take a guess, he'd have said it was the lighthouse. The lighthouse had started it all.

Maybe there was a different universe where the bombs fell a little more to the East, or the tidal waves had been a little more vigorous. In that universe, the lighthouse would have been destroyed. In that universe, Nick wasn't moping around in his office with a bottle of booze like some heartsick fool instead of doing his damn job. That Nick was helping people instead of.. whatever this was.

Nick sighed, bracing his elbows against his thighs and letting his face rest in his palms. He was not that other Nick any more than he was the old pre-war Nick. He was Nick Valentine, synth detective, and he had the lighthouse. He leaned back in his creaky wooden chair and eyed the small glass of whiskey on his desk. Instead of reaching for that, he dug around in his desk drawer and pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes. He shook one loose and lit it, briefly savoring the buzz of nicotine on his artificial tongue.

The lighthouse was the most likely culprit.

It had all started so innocently, too. He didn't mind helping the Minutemen with their errands, especially when it was getting a new settlement established. As far as Nick was concerned, that was a real 'Greater Good' thing to do. When Grace asked if he wanted to go along to get a new home started for people she'd never met, how could he have said no? Her green eyes shone for adventure, her hands flitted around her face as she talked about trying a new style of house foundation for the sandy shores. She called it a home instead of a settlement for God's sake. Not even Preston did that.

Sure, he could have said he had a case, or that he wasn't up for the trip, or that another of their friends would be better suited for the task. He wasn't sure, even now, that he had been the guy for the job. But Grace was a whirlwind and he had been caught up in her path. And the smile that crinkled her eyes almost closed was too blinding for him to see his own peril. So, he went.

The trek down from Sanctuary to the Kingsport Lighthouse was pretty smooth, for the Commonwealth. A few skirmishes here and there with raiders and the like, but nothing to write home about. It was almost suspiciously easy.

The hard part had come when they finally arrived at the lighthouse to find it overrun with Atom cultists, hellbent on nuking them straight off the the beach and into kingdom come. It hadn't been a particularly quick fight, but half the cultists were too busy yakking up their rhetoric to fight well, and the other half were too irradiated to shoot straight. Nick had almost felt bad about not trying to talk them down more, until he saw how many RadAways Grace was going through.

He had felt less generous after that.

Proximity to the lighthouse, Nick thought. Maybe not the lighthouse itself. But the lighthouse was an active player. He mused over the idea while he lit another cigarette and took a sip of the whiskey.

It had all come to a head because of the glowing ghoul. The poor bastard had been locked up inside the top of the lighthouse, a perverted beacon for cult pilgrims. It had been after sending the ghoul to the great atomic beyond that the nosedive had really begun.

Nick had been checking the dead ghoul for any useful items when he heard Grace's yell over the whipping wind and the thundering sea.

"Oh my god. Nick! Look at this!"

His head snapped up and in two strides he had found himself on the catwalk of the lighthouse, alone. A moment of panic sent unusual electricity through him. Had Grace fallen? Did he dare look down to confirm as much? What if-

"Nick!" Grace called from above him. He looked up and saw she had gone to the very top of the structure. On top of the light's enclosure, she looked like she could have signaled ships at sea through will alone. But she wasn't looking at the sea. She was looking at him.

She stretched a hand out, a wordless command of _come to me_ and Nick, God help him, obeyed. Her hand met his coat sleeve and the skeletal metal forearm beneath it when he climbed the steps to the final platform. He wasn't sure if the firm pressure of her hand was for her own balance, or his.

"Look how beautiful it is," she said over the wind and surf, grinning up at him before gesturing with her other hand and looking out to the place where ocean met sky. "God, it's almost like bombs never dropped at all." The last part was quieter, and Nick didn't know if he had been meant to hear it of not.

Nick thought he had smiled back, but he knew he hadn't looked out at the ocean. He looked at the woman next to him, all bruises and cuts topped with a mostly shaved head, the ponytail doing its best to escape the thin strip of leather keeping it back. He'd looked at the burn on her neck from the Forged a few weeks ago that would probably scar and the small dimples on her ear where she had at one point in her life worn additional earrings. At the top of that lighthouse, it was like seeing her for the first time.

His cigarette was out, he realized. Not only out, but smoked down to the filter. He lit another, taking the first drag and opening the bottle of whiskey to pour another glass in the same action. Maybe it had been the height of the lighthouse? He didn't exactly have adrenal glands like a human, but maybe some self-preservation subroutine had kicked in, and being the prototype he was, it had a bug?

When she had looked back at him not looking at the ocean, he truly thought he had felt all his running threads stop. If he hadn't run a check that night, a bug in his code would have been the most likely explanation. In that moment however, he had been almost happily resigned to becoming the Tin Man on the lighthouse.

_Just bring me one of those oil cans and I'll take you to the Emerald City, doll._

Instead of saying anything sensible, he had of course reverted to wry jokes. "The tourist industry's not what it used to be if that overgrown hot air balloon doesn't ruin your view" and he gestured to the Brotherhood's ridiculous blimp, hovering in the distance.

Grace had rolled her eyes with a smile and released his arm. He regretted his comment immediately, but it was done. They went back down the steps of the lighthouse to start building and cleaning a new home for settlers who had never met them. For the next week, they put up defenses, fixed the roof, and cleared the way for the lives that would be lived there once they were gone.

Every night after sundown, Nick would watch Grace climb up to sit at the very top of the lighthouse. Every night he found a new reason to not join her.

Both the bottle of whiskey and the pack of cigarettes were empty. Nick briefly considered walking over to get another of each from Percy at the surplus, but couldn't bring himself to indulge any more. He felt a flash of jealousy for old Nick, who would have just gone to bed. Old Nick who would have gone up to the lighthouse.

Nick Valentine, synth detective, didn't have that luxury either. He pulled out an old case file and threw himself into the work.

**Author's Note:**

> (Grace was hoping Nick would join her lmao)
> 
> Also, in my own personal headcanon, Nick's body isn't really bothered by his smoking but the nicotine and tar and stuff does gum him up a little, so any time he smokes a lot, he drinks to flush the stuff out. Of course he can't get drunk, it just makes him smell like a pub for a while.


End file.
